Interview with Prof. Jacopo Gaspari of Climate KIC’s PhD Catapult
The Climate KIC community comprises a rich diversity of expertise, skills and perspectives across our alumni, start-ups, innovation partners, advisors and associates, all of whom contribute to our innovation capacity.
This week, we speak to Professor Jacopo Gaspari, coordinator of Climate KIC’s Bologna PhD Catapult, one of three two-week summer schools developing climate change solutions, starting in September.
What’s your role?
I’m the coordinator and project manager of the Catapult Urban Transition autumn school: creating resilient corridors. In my role, I contribute to ideating and planning, and developing the programme and the contents of this intensive educational and research experience.
What are you working on with Climate KIC?
My work is mostly focused on urban regeneration and on developing solutions for supporting the transition towards a low carbon urban environment, while improving its quality adopting climate responsive solutions and energy savings strategies.
I started to cooperate with Climate KIC five years ago on these topics, participating as lead professor for the course, developing the sustainable cities course and then leading three editions of Catapult summer schools on urban transition.
What are three implications of this work?
The work enables PhD Catapult participants to work according to a multi-disciplinary approach which combines different expertise and perspectives. It helps develop replicable and scalable solutions and concepts that may support urban transition at both research and educational level. It develops innovative design strategies to engage stakeholders into the challenge.
What or who gives you hope or inspiration in the fight against climate change?
The main driver of my activity fits well with this sentence from Eric Hoffer, an American moral and social philosopher, “In a time of drastic change it is the learners who inherit the future. The learned usually find themselves equipped to live in a world that no longer exists.”
You can find out more about the Catapult summer schools below.
Sustainable Land Use: Short food supply chains in operation runs from 22 September to 6 October in Budapest and Valencia.
Sustainable Land Use & Urban Transitions: Design for Deconstruction in Wood runs from 16 to 29 September in Gothenburg.
Urban Transitions: Creating resilient corridors runs from 10 to 21 September in Bologna.
The deadline to apply to attend Climate KIC’s PhD Catapult is 31 July 2018.
Professor Jacopo Gaspari coordinates Climate KIC’s PhD Catapult in Bologna. The two-week summer school brings together PhD students from around the world to develop solutions to climate change issues.